Well isn's this just wonderful...

[sedrosken]

We get back home and get all of a day before an F1 tornado rips through, cuts our power (with optimist estimates at around three days before its fixed, storm took down entire poles) and screws up our roof. Thank God for house insurance, if nothing else.

We might not have school if it doesn't have power by tomorrow morning.

 

[sedrosken]

Surprisingly enough, the power is back on. The electric company must be on top of things.

 

[CougTek]

I can't find a report for a tornado near Grand Rapids. I don't know much about the weather services in your area though.

 

[Mercutio]

Where I grew up, I was more than once within about a mile of where a tornado touched down. Sometimes my house would be pelted with corn or bits of snow fence. One time I found a car tire in my yard after a tornado went through. A couple years after I moved away from central Illinois, the town immediately next to the one where I grew up was almost completely destroyed by one.

If you were close enough to be impacted and all you got out of it was some roof damage, consider yourself and your family very lucky.

 

[jtr1962]

A tornado actually touched down right where I live in 2010. We didn't sustain any damage directly, but many others did. I took loads of pictures on the day it happened and several days afterwards:

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-16-2010?sort=4&page=1

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-17-2010?sort=4&page=1

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-18-2010?sort=4&page=1

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-19-2010?sort=4&page=1

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-21-2010?sort=4&page=1

http://s91.photobucket.com/user/jtr1962/library/Flushing Tornado 2010/09-22-2010?sort=4&page=1

The event actually made it into Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Brooklyn/Queens_tornadoes

 

[sedrosken]

We were very lucky. Our satellite dish got bent in half, and shingles are missing from our house, Grandma's house and Grandma's garage, and there's a small hole in the roof of their garage, but that's about it. Oh, our makeshift skirting (plywood boards, I'm not kidding) got a few pieces torn off, and some guy walked off with a piece this morning, but yeah, all things considered we made it out with a slap on the wrist. No one was hurt, and nothing was damaged that we couldn't replace.

And we got very prompt service from the electric company. Had power again the next night, despite the storm taking out a few poles and downing quite a few lines.

 

[sedrosken]

Wow jtr, that looks rough. we also lost quite a few trees, around half of the 20 or so we had between us and Grandma and Grandpa. All broken off about 5.5ft up from the ground, so the tornado or whatever didn't quite touch down but it came pretty darn close. The saddest thing is, I was the most calm then that I've ever been in similar situations, even when those similar situations saw us through with no damage whatsoever.